On Tuesday, April 7, 2015, my second grade students performed How Does Your Garden Grow? by John Jacobson and John Higgins. I started teaching the musical in the middle of February 2015. Leading up to their performance, we practice our songs in music class, and the second grade teachers played the songs and the speaking parts every day in class . Even though the students were immersed with the music and text of the musical, there were some parts that still needed to be fine tuned. Due to time constraints, I wished that I had another two weeks to rehearse with my students. Never the less, the performance was great. I received many complements from parents, family members, co workers, and students, but I still wished that my students could have had more rehearsal time.
During my reflection time after any performance I ask myself. what can I do better for my students? How can I motivate my students to practice? What resources can I use to get my students "fired up" on learning new music, and not get bored or frustrated when rehearsing or practicing? This week's reading assignment was beneficial for my post performance reflection.
In Chapter four of Music in Music Learning Today (Bauer, 2014), the title of the chapter is Performing Music. Bauer discusses that the performing musician utilizes knowledge and skills from psychomotor, cognitive, and affective domains. Music performance teachers help their students to develop all of these skills in different ways. Developing singing or instrumental techniques requires physical skills or executive skills. For instance posture, breath support, embouchure, and holding positions, The use of motor skills is characterized as procedural knowledge according to Ormrod (2012). When playing an instrument or singing it takes both physical and mental components. "When learning psychomotor skill, individuals progress from the cognitive stage...to the associative stage...,with a goal of achieving the autonomic stage" (Bauer, 2014, p. 80). Therefore music educators must develop their students motor skills and take these stages into consideration to promote the achievement of automatcity, by scaffolding, experiences and activities. I agree that music teachers do help promote psychomotor skills with our students.
When I teach recorders to my third, fourth, and fifth graders, I get negative feed back from some students who ask "Why do we have use our left hand instead of my right hand for the top part of the recorder?" I would explain to them that for most instruments, the left hand is on the top of the instrument (i. e. string instruments, woodwinds, etc). Most of my students would comply by properly holding the recorder correctly. However, the students who have a difficult using their left hand. are the students who are having difficulties with their academic studies, some are on an Individual Educational Program (IEP),and/ or Behavioral Plan. Regardless of their situations, having students use proper recorder techniques is beneficial for their psycholomotor skills. However, it can be detrimental for keeping some students motivated and not shutting down. My students who are having difficulties, I adjust my students holding time, until they feel more comfortable holding the recorder correctly. I have them practice keeping the steady beat with their left hand, or have all my students practice using their left hand fingering, while using their right forearm as the recorder. I know that with practice all my students can improve over time, but it is difficult to convince some students that they will improve over time. Every time I listen to my students who are struggling I always say "I notice that you are holding the recorder correctly today." Or," I notice how you played the correct rhythmic passage and used the correct fingering. Now you need to work on creating the correct tone. I am excited for your achievement this week."
The discussion about music practice and motivation to practice is something that my students do struggle over. I have used extrinsic motivations to keep my students engaged and encouraged to practice using Recorder Karate Plank Road Publishing. I agree the importance of quantity and quality of practice is important to develop motor skills. I inform my students about my practice struggles, While I was finishing my undergraduate music studies, I was married and had two children ages two and four years old. I remember going to my piano lesson and informed my professor that I did not have any time to practice, due to my son was ill. My piano professor, Dr, Solomons, told me that today's lesson he was going to show me how to practice in a short time frame, and how to manage my practice time more effectively He took the time to show me how to practice within a ten or twenty minute sessions. During my practice time, I was able to accomplish more during those short and more frequent time frames, than I would in an hour practice session. Dr. Solomons practice lesson was the most memorable lesson that motivated me to manage my time, with my busy life style.
Reading about Smartmusic, I wished that Smartmusic was available when I was learning the piano, and clarinet. Even now I would enjoy using Smartmusic for my own personal use. My general music students would benefit from having access to this technology. Being able to listen to a student's recording of their practice and give immediate feed back would be highly motivating for my students. and me. Students being able to practice at home and get a virtual one on one practice time would help my students to track their progress. Keeping a audio recording journal of my students progress would demonstrate that it takes time to show improvement when singing or playing an instrument over a period of time.
I am also looking forward to use Audacity in my classroom for recording my students singing and instrument playing time. In the past I would use an MP3 recorder, but now that I am in school district that does not have that recording device, Audacity would be ideal.
Looking forward to see how students can use technology to enhance their practice time, and increase their intrinsic motivation is exciting.
Bauer, W. I. (2014), Performing Music. In Bauer, W. I. (2014). Music learning today: Digital
pedagogy for creating performing and responding to music (pp.75-100). New York:
Oxford University Press.
Melanie,
ReplyDeleteI can relate to your discussion of motivating practice and correct performance for elementary students. My instrumental music classes involve teaching full classes (18-24 students) one instrument for 2-3 months, then switching to a different instrument. Students complete 3 rotations during 4th grade. They play the violin, clarinet, and trumpet. In my district, students select band/orchestra/choir in 5th grade, so this exploratory program is aimed at helping them make an educated decision about their music career. Much of my instruction is spent developing psychomotor skills such as posture, hand positions, and embouchure. We do a lot of echoing, call and response, and modeling for one another in class.
Yesterday marked the end of the second rotation (violin this year) at my school. I was thinking about the stages you quoted in your post and how I am lining up my instruction with these steps toward automaticity. Violin was a particularly differentiated unit since they studied it in 3rd grade with a different teacher, thus many were discouraged before beginning our instruction this year. Also, 2-4 students per class take violin lessons outside of school.
Each lesson, I reviewed the open strings, fingerings, and proper hand positions. I devised a personal challenge system for the students to work on, scaffolding music performance goals for them to achieve and practice at their own pace. After 3 months of violin playing in fourth grade, all students played the A Major Scale with the bow, and played "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" in A Major.
Reflecting on the unit, I think that some students would have benefited from more repetitive practice of pitches and bow technique, but I feel that the challenges fed into their intrinsic motivation. There were 1-2 students in each class that did whatever they could to not practice the violin during our lesson, and I feel that for some it was because they did not have the confidence to work independently. I wish I were able to give small group lessons rather than full classes to really reach the students and help them gain intrinsic motivation through extrinsic support on my part. However, when I am the only teacher in a room of instruments, for 50 minutes once a week, that did not fit the mold.
In terms of implementing technology, I used the SmartBoard with my own violin fingering chart page that the students could reference throughout class. It would have been really cool to have classroom computers set up around the edge of the classroom for students to access model videos or tutorials for practice for the particular song they were practicing. I suppose that would necessitate these videos actually existing! Summer project??
Thank you for your post!